Founded in 1993 by brothers Tom and David Gardner, The Motley Fool helps millions of people attain financial freedom through our website, podcasts, books, newspaper column, radio show, and premium investing services.

Why Luminex Is Poised to Keep Plunging

Market-lagging returns could be written in this 2-Star.

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, biological testing technologist Luminex (NASDAQ:LMNX) has received an alarming one-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Luminex and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Luminex facts

Headquarters (founded)

Austin, Texas (1995)

Market Cap

$730.6 million

Industry

Life sciences tools and services

Trailing-12-Month Revenue

$202.6 million

Management

CEO Patrick Balthrop Sr. (since 2004)CFO Harriss Currie (since 2003)

Return on Equity (average, past 3 years)

4.4%

Cash/Debt

$56.4 million / $2.8 million

Competitors

AffymetrixLife TechnologiesSequenom

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 14% of the 106 members who have rated Luminex believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward.

Earlier this week, one of those bears, All-Star bclan13, succinctly summed up the bear case for our community:

Other technologies are coming in and taking away more and more of where Luminex's performance envelope has a competitive advantage (lab geeks' "mid-plex"). I see particular pressures in genetic disease testing. ... Longer term, there is a stable business for Luminex in [Human Leukocyte Antigens ] testing (particularly the protein tests) but this is not going to provide double digit growth forever -- a requirement of a company with this kind of valuation.

Want to see how well (or not so well) the stocks in this series are performing? Follow the TrackPoisedTo CAPS account.